Asset Recovery Associates [ARA] review: fraud and scam 29

My husband was contacted by a man claiming he was a deputy from Harris county sheriff department that they were looking for my son to arrest him for bank fraud. My son had an outstanding debt with a loan company that he hadn't been able to pay since he lost his job and couldn't make good on the loan. He new all my sons information. My husband then called me with a case number and a number to a lawyer that had all the information to settle the debt. So I called the so called lawyer and he said yes that my soon was in trouble with his former bank and the loan institute he borrowed from and that they wanted $4183 as a settlement payment. That it was for damages and court cost. If we settled it right away that he wouldn't be arrested and his debt would be paid in full. He knew all of our SS#'s and where we lived and car make and model. But I was so freaked out and didn't want my son to go to jail me like a dummy I paid $1083 to the company to settle my son's debt. After thinking about it we did some investigating and found out that there was no officer Patrick Morgan with the badge # he gave my husband. I also googled the so called lawyer named Brian Gates and there is one by that name but he doesn't collect debts for businesses. And plus when I heard a voicemail the police left my son when he tried contacting him. The lawyer and the officer had the same voice. It was the same man impersonating an officer and a lawyer. We got scam and I called my bank right away and call the police to report it. The police that came by my house said yes it was most likely we were scammed. So please be careful and don't be scared by someone trying to collected money over the phone. I know I'm not gonna fall for that again. I was taken for $1083 and I sure hope I can recover my money!

Please read this go to link anyone who had issues with these crooks.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/two-indicted-nationwide-unclaimed-property-fraud-scheme

ARA is a [censor] company that buys obsolete information that has know merit now. They hire [censor] that have no clue what their doing and try to strong arm, insult and harassment techniques. I recommend reporting them to your local States Attorneys office and let them deal with them. You also can report them to the federal authorities because they are operating out of your State. Good luck. If this does not work you can piggy back any class action law suit against them.

This is a scam! I was contacted on my cell today from an illinois number [protected] with a voice message from a lashay kelly of ara regarding a "claim of mine" and a request to call her back at [protected] x 3089. she even added that it is imperative I call her today and asked that I provide the case # 3519557. it sounded professional and official. I called and a man answered. all he identified himself as was mike from ara & associates. I asked for ext 3089 and he asked for my case # which I provided. I thought perhaps this was some company trying to claim of my auto insurance. he then said oh yes this is in reference to a xxx and mentioned my husband's name. I asked to speak with the person who called and was referred to lashay kelly. when I identified I was calling in response to her msg she told me they were getting ready to request a judgment at my county court (she knew my county) as there had been no response to a letter the court had sent to my current home address. she knew the name and number of my address where I have just lived for 15 months (before this I actually lived out of state). I told her I had received no letter from our county court and demanded she provide additional information. she proceeded to tell me that I owed a visa credit card bill and provided the last 4 digits of my ss# and said it was to first usa bank. she said it had been reported to some of my other creditors and named 2 companies I have cards with. she said the original amount was for $554 from an account opened in march 1994 and closed in june 2000 and as I had not apparently paid the amount owed is now $15, 466.47. wow sticker shock! I told her I firstly had never had an account with first usa bank and secondly I certainly did not owe any money for an account she claims I closed 17 years ago. I laughed at her and told her I hope she has supporting evidence for her case because there is no way this is genuine. I stated to her that I know this is a fraudulent call. she started to become very beligerant and threatening. I told her my next call was going to be to my lawyer to sue her a* and she hung up. I cannot believe the gall of this company trying to scam people out of money. I can imagine a lot of people believe them when they provide identifying information. if you are reading this and received a similar call and are thinking of paying them money, do not pay them. never, ever give anyone your bank account or credit card number to give them a payment. these people are pure [censor]! file a complaint. for the federal trade commission - just go to www.ftc.gov/complaint or call 1-877-ftc-help. for the better business bureau - https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started or call [protected].0100 or mail to council of better business bureaus, 3033 wilson blvd, suite 600, arlington, va 22201. another good place to contact is your local state attorneys office to file a complaint and have them investigate. we cannot let ara & associates and other companies like them get away with this blatent preying on others. we have to take action. alert everyone you know so no-one falls victim to this scam. thank you, rant over!

I also am in the middle of a major dispute with these scam artists... seeing a charge on my credit card over something that was cleared up over 15 years ago!... I also am getting a lawyer to look into it and sue the crap out of them.. this should have been stopped years ago from all the complaints i'm seeing.

These guys called me yesterday 18 apr 17 they said I quit paying on a credit card in 2005, that I had since 1995. I never had one. my credit was to poor to qualify for one. they said since I did not respond to a letter they sent in january 2017, they had a judgement against me for $ 20, 550.15, but she could speak with a floor manager to see if the settlement could still be in place. after holding for a while, they said it would. just pay a $ 1500.00 deposit now and pay the rest of the $ 4300.00 within 7 days. these people new my ss# previous addresses, even gave me my deceased mothers address in cleveland, I never lived there. I kept asking for written proof, they said they didn't have to. like an idiot, I gave them a credit card number foe the $ 1500.00. as soon as I got home that evening, I spoke with my wife, and she does not remember us having a credit card then either. I immediately called my bank, cancelled the card and disputed that transaction. got a lawyer looking into them now.

Received the message below from a voicemail call that was transferred to my email yesterday morning:

Hello susan it is imperative that you speak with tammy bloomberg regarding your case. I l3159319. my number is toll free [protected]. my extension is 3049. you must contact my office immediately.

When I returned tammy's call yesterday, she informed me that I owed master card $14, 000 and had to pay it immediately or they would cancel my credit cards and close my bank accounts. when I started laughing at her, tammy said that they would be issuing a warrant for my arrest, also, which only induced more laughter on my part since I knew immediately it was some kind of fraudulent scam.

After calling her a litany of well deserved derogatory names, I hung up on her. just a few minutes later I got a call from [protected] from a man who started the threats again immediately. I called him a few choice names and hung up. got call #3 just a few minutes after that from [protected] with tammy back on line with even more threats screaming at me that i'd go to jail. of course, I knew better and hung up on her.

Also, very disturbing is the fact that ara had my ss#, unlisted landline phone and tracphone number when i've only had these lines about a year. I called my telephone provider, and they did assure me that my phone number was listed as private. there are hundreds of complaints on line similar to mine, except most people were intimidated enough to give them money. these people need to be stopped. they are extremely viscious and it would be enough to frighten most people. I can see how so many caved into these crooks.

I've reported them to the dept of justice, federal trade commission, oregon attorney general's office and the fbi fraud dept. which I strongly encourage all to do. the ftc # is [protected].

My mom was called and was told she owed on a master card, that had been opened 4/13/2000 and closed on 3/31/2006. they said it had accrued over $14, 000.00. they said they had sent letters notifying of the money owed. they said they would take her social security, freeze her bank account and other things. they had her ss#, the address, they had all her information. my mom, wife and I all live together and weirdly enough, they had the names of all our cards. they said they would freeze all our accounts and our credit would not be good. they said if it was not paid, we would have to go to court and it was a good chance we have to pay the full amount, if we did not settle for a lower amount. I was very upset because they had made my mom cry and also my wife. I told them that we were not going to be able to pay anything, so they should just go ahead and send it to the courts. they were very persistent on getting paid. the names of these two women are tammy bloomberg who was very rude and nasty at first, then came ryan jeter who tried to play the nice one. she started throwing out all these legal terms and eventually transferred me back to tammy. tammy was now trying to be nice, at the same time, still trying to get payment.

I too was contacted on sept. 13, 2016 in regards to collections on one of my credit cards. after being totally bullied by these people I was led to believe I had been turned over for collections. I maxed out the rest of my cards to the grand total of $2, 982.00. now trying to get my money back is hopeless. I have managed to get my credit card companies to work with me on settlement of payments. I have tried to contact the asset recovery associates inc in villa park, il to no avail. all the help topics and email contacts are bogus. I even tried emailing through my own computer, but they were never sent. I kept getting no such email address existed. so beware to anyone that gets a call from mike johnson, collection manager, or tammy bloomberg, collection manager, everyone is a collection manager, hang up, do your research, get proof you owe that bill.

My father-in-law received a call from a "friend" looking for me about an urgent matter. Christine Sullivan is a name I recognized as a business associate from many years ago so I called back. This was not the same Christine Sullivan - surprise, surprise. They said that I owed Key Bank $4400 and that I needed to pay or contact my attorney as I would be sued. (I haven't done business with Key Bank since 2002 when I was contacted by them for a loan I had co-signed for that my niece defaulted on. I ended up paying it off to fix my credit rating.)
I asked her how old the debt was. She shuffled some papers and said that the bank wrote if off in "2002 but it is still owed"! I told her "first of all; you have NO right to collect a debt that old from anybody, but secondly, that was paid in full in 2002!" I told them to never call me again and hung up.

ARA is stall at to this day, trying there best to scam people.

I received a phone call yesterday5 Oct 2016, stating I owed a debt from over 15 years ago. The man sounded legit and had a lot of my personal information. He was stating laws and other judicial information that he could use against me. He almost had me convinced until he asked for a 10% payment. I asked him for some type of supporting documentation and he refused to give me anything official in writing, only thru e-mail. ARA had my credit report and was reading word for word directly for my Experian Credit Report. How do I know this you might ask, cause I pulled my credit report while I was on the phone with the guy. He even went as far to ask me for a payment from my credit card, he knew I had a credit card due to it being on my credit report. After I terminated the phone call I immediately called my banks Fraud phone number and informed them of this matter. My Bank informed me that they have received numerous reports from this company in the past stating almost the exact information I gave them.

I have been trying to clear up my credit for the last 2 years and it improved a lot but there was one account for a little over $1.400 that I had disputed with the credit bureau because of a $553 charge that wasn’t mine and visa refused to take off. For three years no one would negotiate with me until I talked to these guys, In the course of a ten minute conversation they settled it for the amount that I agreed I owed and took it off my credit bureau report. As collection agencies go they are really good.

Ok see that everyone is commenting this is a scam and they have all your personal info as in name SSN family members etc... Everybody may not have knowledge of the bill collection process but just to clarify if your contacted by a bill collector and they have your info its because at some point you created a debt you defaulted on a bill and what usually happens is if the original debtor is unable to collect from you they sale the debt this is the reason they have your info. Secondly if you are unaware of the debt it may be because someone else stole your identity at some point not that the collection agency randomly just threw your name on top of a debt

This may be a new spin on things.
I just received a letter stating Australian Recovery Services had located a large sum of monies which belonged to my deregistered company. It further stated this money was sitting in a government held unrecovered funds account and they want to help me to get these funds back.
Sounded legit till I read the other comments on this blog. Damn Damn...

I received a private call today telling me i need to call this 1855 # and the gave me a cv##### to reference them to my case number. They also said that it would be best not to have my children with me when i get served at home or work. What is up with that?
My mother was contacted by them and my ex sister in law ( whi i have only met a few times and never had her contact info) they told her she was a co defendant and she would be served if i didn't contact them. She was irate.
Apparently i had taken out a pay day advance years ago and i defaulted on paying it back. That never happened. They said i was now accused of check fraud. They wanted me to pay 690 for it to go away. If not it would cost me 1690 in court. Theu also said if i didn't pay after court they would take it out of my taxes.
Ok now. This was some BS. I googled the company ARA. It was all bad. I feel better now but i have ex family member upset with me and that hurts.

Timothy Johnson [protected] called me from the Legal Division of Assets Recovery Associated called me today with my full credit report he had all my pertinent information SSN, address, accounts, prior last names, etc everything! he went on and on about how he is giving me a chance to clear up some debt from 1992 plus interest $5, 70 before they contact the courts and put a lien on my home. He was very rude much like he was interrogating me I let him talk while I bathed my dog and then said I don't appreciate him playing hardball with me and asked for his information before I made any decisions.
Lo and Behold all the negative info came up about this agency. It's a scam! Times are tough for many of us and there are desperate people out there trying to get your hard earned money.

I received a call under the name "private call" to my cell phone twice today saying a lot and i heard the part court and already get anxious. Then i choose a quiet time and call them back. First they said the lady that called me is in court and she will call me back, then i called the number right back and another guy answered and put me through a lady. She said I have a judgement against me because i got a short term money and did not pay it. They said i did give the owner a electronic check, it bounced and they have no trace of it but i owe this money (which cannot be true because the way I set my account at my Credit Union they have to pay everything comes to my account). These people knew everything about me, address, email, work number, cell number, SSN. I am speechless but told them to go ahead and send me the paperwork, that will be more paper for me to trace them and get them to justice for making me so scared and anxious.

I also was contacted by the same company and they also had all my information. 1st time was in March 2015 telling me there was a legal action against me for fraud. Supposedly I had taken out an online account to receive money back in July of 2012 and had all my personal information including last 4 digits of my social and bank account number. They said that the account was for 455 and was deposited into my bank account July 19, 2012. I immediately hung up with them and contacted my bank and explained to them the phone call I received and had them go back to that date the money was supposedly deposited and there was no deposit of such. The funny thing is even tho they had my personal information the email address was not mine. So I let it go and threw it off as a scam. Later on I received a voicemail that was left on my phone telling there was legal action taking out on me and needed my current address so they can serve me papers and said they will either serve me at home or work and right before she hung up she said that i have officially been served. I thought how can you be officially served from a voicemail..Well on September 31, 2015 I received a call From my county clerk of courts office and she said that i had a judgement for fraud against me and papers were being filed at there office and gave me a phone # [protected] and a case# CV166305-04 and told me when I call them to give them the case#. NOW when I seen that the call was from my county clerk of courts office It scared the crap out of me. So I called to see what was going on and it was for that very same account that I took out. I told them I never took out such a account and that I would never get an online account, and there was no money ever deposited into my bank and I can get bank statements to prove it. Greg Davis said that he was the arbitrator and said that the paper work was already started and said that they had enough against me to follow through with filing the papers at this time and the only way that they could stop the process is if I made a payment to them right then. Now seeing the first call was from my county clerk of courts and not thinking clearly at that time I gave him my debit card info and paid them 25 dollars at that time and he scheduled payments for me through November til I had the debt paid off in full. After we hung up and I finally cleared my head I went online and started researching this company and I found a website http://www.agrussconsumerlaw.com/asset-recovery-associates/ and I had an online chat with one of their operators whom I explained my situation to and she immediately had an associate call me. The associate told me I was being scammed and to immediately cancel out my debit card and I did so the following Monday because the next payment would have automatically came out on that following Friday. So now Yesterday October 14th I received a call from a different number [protected] ext 207 from a Maria with ARA asking for me. There has got to be something we can do to stop all these bogus harassing calls and I'm still wondering how I received a call from my county clerk of courts when I'm being scammed?

I got contacted by the same company of friday big scam

I got contacted by the same company today big scam

Asset Recovery Association called me today they are such a scam do not give in to them, Ms Rhonda Middleton called from phone number [protected] ext 108 She called looking for someone else but had all my information threatening me about someone else debt like I am liable for someone else action but the stupid person had the nerve to leave threatening messages on my voicemail so I have my evidence to go after this company, She was saying we are going to be subpoenaed and that I need to get an attorney and I will be served and I have offically been notifed What? Is this legal for someone to contact you looking for someone else but obtained my personal information some kind of way ? I will let my attorney handle this first thing tomorrow morning . Please be aware!

5/24/2015 I am a caregiver/companion for an eighty year old man and this company contacted me on my cell phone (don't know how they got it) wishing to speak to him. I told them he was unavailable and could I take a message. They proceeded to tell me that he owed 3, 555.78 on a debt that I figured was appx 15 years old if in fact was his. They said there was activity on it in 2008, I knew this was not possible because I check his credit every year and there was never a delinquent or late payment on this credit for many years. I have been paying his bills in a timely manner for years. I just blew them off. Next I receive a letter with some sort of silly notarized attachment that did not amount to anything other than the trash and requesting 3, 555.78 all went in trash. A few days ago they phoned again and were very threatening, they said if we did not pay this they would immediately put a freeze on his checking account. I claimed that they could not do that and they replied they can and will. I hung up! This company and it's personnel are a bunch of low life's, they lack education (if they are capable of learning) in the legal way of debt collecting. The part that worries me is they may be praying on elderly people and their MO is intimidation. Please, anybody that has, takes care of, relatives or neighbors that are elderly let them know to never, never send money or give checking accounts to anybody over the phone. These people need to be arrested and sent to prison. Do not give them the time or day, it's time wasted!

I am receiving calls about an amount due to UOP for 433.00 but they will not send me verification thru the mail keep saying they sent an email nothing I refuse to pay until I have documentation of this debt and the amount agreed upon to settle it in writing threatened to have an attorney contact them . so tired of getting calls from them

They're pestering us too for some debt that they found from years ago. My wife, being from Europe, almost feel for their "one time only opportunity" until we looked them up and found this site. Thank goodness we did! They were going to call back to get our bank account information. Now we know not to respond in any way, shape or form to them.

I am receiving phone calls from this company stating that I owe on a charge card that was opened in 2000 and stopped paying on it in 2006, and I owe a balance of 1900.00, The person calling is very rude, and states he would report it to my credit report. I don't understand that if this bill was actually mine, why it has not shown up prior to now on my reports? 6 years later?

Yes I was contacted by the same people. They insisted I owed a loan for a school i never attended.

I was almost scammed by this company also, talked with a Marie Keller from ARA and gave my checking account information to her for the "one chance only settlement offer" and to have them stop the court collection process that had been started. After I hung up with her and tried to track down this account my boss mentioned that hopefully it wasn't a scam. I plugged the name and address of the company into my search engine and low and behold there they were! I contacted my bank immediately and closed my account before they were able to get the money out, thankfully!

Yes,

I agree they are big scammers and I suggest folks be aware and escalate to nearest POLICE station if you receive any such Scant mail or phone calls from ARA or Financial Credit Services.

I completely agree. We just got a notice from ARA today, saying we owed over seven thousand dollars! The envelope looked very familiar. Then I realized we have been duped by these people before, under the name Financial Credit Service or Services. I feel horrible, that I was taken in, I paid them that time. I even talked to them on the phone number they gave. It was a nice black lady that I talked to.

Anyone out there..don't be fooled like I was. I don't know what to do, but I suspect these people have raked in thousands of dollars. I hope I can find some way to get them put in jail, and stop ripping people off.

Everyone and anyone reading this, if you receive an envelope with a return address of ARA, it's fake. They even have a bogus website. All the pictures look like stock photos that anyone can use.

Please don't get fooled by these criminals.